Louise Kearins

Current PhD Student

Can HEI's sustain MOOC development fourteen* years after they were launched? An exploration of HEI MOOC development in Ireland and the UK.

Louise has been involved in the development and delivery of public and private education for over seventeen years, mainly working in the online learning space as a teacher, content developer, instructional designer, and project manager within the higher and further education sectors.  Currently, working as a Senior Instructional Designer at ATU, Louise is leading a remote team of instructional designers who are developing learning content for MOOCs, reusable learning content, and work-based and problem-based learning projects for the Higher Education 4.0 project.  Additionally, Louise is also a part-time PhD student at ATU, under the supervision of Dr Moran and Dr Share; she is exploring current MOOC development in the higher education sector in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Her research project is framed on Charmaz’s (2006) Constructive Grounded Theory, as it allows the researcher to discover the unknown and enables the research data to guide the research direction.  The research participants include lecturers, course designers (which encompasses instructional, learning and multimedia designers) and managers (faculty, department, and project managers) who are or were involved in MOOC development.  In-depth interviews with ‘multiple roles’ in a university enables the researcher to view the university’s MOOC development through multiple lenses.  To date, little has been written about the collective Irish and UK MOOC experience; this research project facilitates the researcher to examine MOOC production in Ireland and the UK.  Exploring the similarities and differences to understand and learn from their experiences in production, sustainability, and integration into higher education.